Certainty And Controversy: Social Media

Matthew Barnes

Mrs. Jacoby

Language Arts

March 6, 2017

Social Media About 92% of Americans own a smartphone and more than 67% of these smartphone owners use some type of social media on their device. As social media becomes more popular, it has a greater and greater influence on our social lives. Apps are being produced that allow us to communicate with people thousands of miles away. Technology is becoming more wildly available and allows us to use these apps. As we have become more familiar with social media apps and accepted them for how much of our time they take away, we have grown to share the same views on when it is appropriate to utilize social media to share our lives with others. Social media is making us more social, and without

We’ve been able to create more lasting relationships with the birth of it. Today with apps like FaceTime and Tango, we can connect with people thousands of miles away. We can use FaceTime to talk to friends and family that don’t live near us. Without these apps we wouldn’t be able to see these people as often. Social media apps and sites also introduce us to new people that we can start relationships with. In the article “SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy” paragraph 4 states, “Keith N. Hampton, a professor at Rutgers University of Communication and Information says that technology is enriching our social lives. He has studied his students and colleagues and found the students have many more close relationships because of their cell phones and media usage than the older colleagues (Hampton).” Hampton is a professor who has conducted professional research and found that social media has actually created more lasting relationships. With the growth of social media and the fact that these apps work on any smartphone, social media has become more widely available and more

According to the article “SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy”, “In contrast, Professor Larry Rosen, a Psychologist from the University of California State, Dominguez Hill says the opposite. He holds that the multiple relationships we make online are not very fruitful, they aren’t really close friends.” Also some argue that we are using our phones to be anti-social during gatherings. Zeman says “Most or 89%, said they pulled their phone out during their last group event, and 86% said someone in their group also used their phone.” Some people believe that with this new form of communication and the distraction of cell phones, we aren’t communicating as much. People think that social media helps us create superficial relationships too. Many people disagree with social media and think that it doesn’t benefit